of the Reformation had made Bohemia an object of special interest to the people of England, and there was much intercourse between the English and Bohemian Courts.  I have no notion indeed that this breach of geography was a blunder:  it was meant, no doubt, for the convenience of thought; and such is its effect, until one goes to viewing the parts of the work with reference to ends not contemplated in the use here made of them.  And the same is to be said touching several points of chronological confusion; such as the making Whitsun pastorals, Christian burial, Julio Romano, the Emperor of Russia, and Puritans singing psalms to hornpipes, all contemporary with the Oracle of Delphi; wherein actual things are but marshalled into an ideal order, so as to render Memory subservient to Imagination.  In these and such points, it is enough that the materials be apt to combine among themselves, and that they agree in working out the issue proposed, the end thus regulating the use of the means.  For a work of art, as such, should be itself an object for the mind to rest upon, not a directory to guide it to something else.  So that here we may justly say “the mind is its own place”; and, provided the work be true to this intellectual whereabout, breaches of geography and history are of little consequence.  And Shakespeare knew full well, that in poetical workmanship Memory stands absolved from the laws of time, and that the living order of art has a perfect right to overrule and supersede the chronological order of facts.  In a word, history and chronology have no rights which a poet, as such, is bound to respect.  In his sphere, things draw together and unite in virtue of other affinities than those of succession and coexistence.  A work of art must indeed aim to be understood and felt; and so far as historical order is necessary to this, so far it may justly claim a prerogative voice.  But still such a work must address itself to the mind and heart of man as man, and not to particular men as scholars or critics.  That Shakespeare did this better than anybody else is the main secret of his supremacy.  And it implies a knowledge far deeper than books could give,—­the knowledge of a mind so intuitive of Nature, and so at home with her, as not to need the food of learning, because it fed directly on that which is the original food of learning itself.

Hence the conviction which I suppose all true Shakespearians to have, that no amount of scholastic advantages and acquirements could really do any thing towards explaining the mystery of his works.  To do what he did at all, he must have had a native genius so strong and clear and penetrative, as to become more than learned without the aid of learning.  What could the hydrants of knowledge do for a mind which thus dwelt at its fountain?  Or why should he need to converse with Wisdom’s messengers, whose home was in the very court and pavilion of Wisdom herself?  Shakespeare is always weakest when a fit of learning takes him.  But then he is stronger without learning than any one else is with it, and, perhaps, than he would have been with it himself; as the crutches that help the lame are but an incumbrance to the whole.